The assembly of the SP as a compromise of the corrupt

Alfred Lela

Edi Rama's speeches have begun to smell of sameness: a spruce of impatience and annoyance for subordinates. This annoyance to the point of contempt is not only evident in the brutality with which he charges and discharges them without saying anything, which can be seen in their dejected faces but also in the endless time he gives himself in power, that is, the psychological terror that he exercises remembering that this is how he will treat them... for another 50 years.

Today, he dared, like a cyborg, and said... why not another 100 years? It's the annoyance of the one who doesn't have a plan and, what's more, thinks that there aren't even people around for his plan. Only such pathologies see power as illiquid. In such a liquid world, such a projection borders on the absurd.

While Edi Rama was playing Jackson Pollock on the purple canvas of the Renaissance, bewilderment appeared on the face of Elisa Spiropali when she found herself promoted to the Speaker of the Parliament instead of Lindita Nikolla. Not that Elisa doesn't like high positions, but that in this 'trap' she has to choose: to respect the 'pro-American' oath and remove Xhačka's mandate, as the Constitutional Court demands, or to stay in the hot armpit of the boss, who does not want Olta sacrificed. Lindita did not run away due to health issues but left a high office that became a trap.

These are just colors, almost political bucolicisms, issued by today's Assembly of the Socialist Party. All the rest, even heavier, more serious, is a dark conspiracy of the corrupt.

Rama may not have a plan for the governance of Albania, but he has one for keeping power. He said it today to "teach" the ministers or anyone else who has eaten or will eat plums behind his back. "So, who sits and counts; the former minister, he was called, and he does it, as if he is counting martyrs, even if he is closing our roads because we don't have others, we don't have the strength because we lost one, we lost two, we lost three... Take it, take it. We are 800 thousand! …”     

Rama is clear in the game of power but an open threat to the serious work of governing the country. His tactic is to let corruption fester and fill the coffers of luxury and election wars. On the other hand, he opens the doors for SPAK to take anyone except himself and the 3-4 untouchables who provide the infrastructure of power and finance. For this, he is ready to take everyone to the guillotine, one, two, three, as he says... up to 800 thousand.

To make the ax he drops on his government more bearable and, at the same time, more spectacular, he occasionally refreshes it by inducting into the club of corrupt senior directors who come directly from the corruption agencies - the same breed he says he does not allow to be both a director and in the Assembly makes him a minister. By thus openly mocking the entire leadership structure of the SP, who sat and saw him as a marveled shell.

To understand the difference between Rama and a head of government of a European country, imagine for a moment what he/she would have done as the prime minister. So, if a group of MPs and ministers were in custody or prison for corruption. No European Prime Minister would be in office, even without popular anger, political, personal or Christian ethics would drive him away. Even less would a European prime minister swear that his party would be in power for 100 years, despite real or perceived corruption, despite the undoing of half of the cabinet.

What Rama does as if he doesn't understand is the unwritten but logical rule that the politician who comes to rest with the group falls with it; if the opposite happens and the group collapses, for one reason or another, so does the leader. We are talking about a functioning democracy. On the contrary, we are in the case of Enver Hoxha, when the entire leadership dome was 'shot' or 'suicided', but the Party and the Leader continued steadfastly on the path towards 'continuity'.

One such case is the deepest corruption of the political system, of competition, accountability, and governance. Therefore, the Assembly of the SP did not resemble a congress that announces elections for the party superstructure or makes government corrections, but an oath of the corrupt. The confusion and embarrassment on Elisa's face is not a sign that there is dissent in the dome of corruption. No, because corruption is so deep that even those who brought some of the instruments to tame corruption must be fought with its tools: the Americans.

Who, even they, silent shells like the assemblymen of the SP, sit and watch.